Symphonic Death Metal

Symphonic death metal is a style of death metal that scores the genre's blast beats, down-tuned riffing and guttural vocals with full orchestral and choral forces — real orchestras, sampled libraries or both. *Septicflesh* established the model in Greece in the 1990s, recording with the Prague Philharmonic for "Communion" (2008), and Italy's *Fleshgod Apocalypse* pushed it toward neoclassical velocity and operatic soprano parts. Where symphonic black metal uses orchestration for atmosphere, symphonic death metal keeps death metal's rhythmic violence in front and writes the orchestra as a second, equally aggressive band.